Previously I wondered if it was ethical to be happy in a dystopia. I think I've paid my negativity dues. They are contained in this blog. For my more longterm survival I have to focus more on positive stuff now. Also was thinking that in order to stick with the longterm effort of writing fiction books I will really need a more positive outlook.

Somewhat related I think I need to believe in my audience. Or, well, I should say invent an audience that actually gets what I'm saying as I suppose I'm doubtful any such real audience exists. I need to believe one does to have a chance.

This blog contains such negatives. I have to finish going through the whole damm thing. Briefly summarizing. I'm procrastinating. Otherwise must turn to the positive.

Is there much?

There's some. Enough I think. Better not try to list them though. May find there's less than I think! But as I lay in the dark at night I'm trying to find one to think about as opposed to thinking about disasterously not falling asleep. I need to daydream about silly things. But what?

Remember as boy and young man would dream about being a famous sports player. I'd daydream at night in bed about hitting homeruns, dunking, running for touchdowns. I'd daydream about making incredible music. I'd daydream about the interviews I'd give, lol. I'd daydream about women. Being cool/desirable, etc. (Not talking sex here...) I don't know what else.

....I could dream about finding an elf in the bit of wood by my house.

I remember my daydreams in elementary school. So out of control. Today they'd call it ADD. Dreaming of flying. Don't remember what all exactly I dreamed of.... I remember imagining a tiny man running across my desk, down my ruler to my seat, imagining it was a part of some strange other world the man was on....

Must find such things as opposed to endless negatives that instead fill my mind now.... The scythe. Closing the office door....

I could dream of how great my future children will be? Except it's looking I very well won't have any which is a nightmare. I could dream of stories surely. Surely. Surely. I could go over past fiction stories I've read. Just finished Vernon Vinge. A Fire in the Deep. Had read it at least 10 years ago and totally forgotten having done so. Took more than 100 pages to remember. Ending was a huge letdown. Lots actually didn't like. The beginning was good. The pack intelligence. But it didn't really deliver. In retrospect was predictable that it wouldn't.....

Now some Clifford Simak story which is starting out quite absurd. The antagonist is literally called "The Evil". Was going back over Salvatore's Drizzt series. One thing it really had going for it was a high vocabulary which gave it an air of authority thus making it seem more real. Not just some run of the mill Joe Shmoe slapping some stuff together, no, here's a man saying a bunch of words high fallutin words. And tiddah! Menzobarranzan exists in a way Simak's world just doesn't. ...although actually Simak's vocab is full of words no one would ever normally use.... I'm perhaps missing the real special quality of Salvatore's writing... But anyway, within fiction there is a place to go, instead of thinking about scythes and insomnia, etc.

Bought and planted hostas, ivy and mums today. Also some outdoor solar lights. Yesterday bought a few more concrete things. Nothing there to daydream about.

Can I daydream about playing the cello? I guess maybe I have a little here and there.... But it's more a thing of just enjoying actually doing....... Without dreams of being famous, what does one daydream about? Have to work on that.... Daydream about making people happy. Daydream about making the world a better place. Of course. Not about obtaining power/fame. Those are the worst people.

A big hearty fuck you to all of you who were too weak to do anything but assimilate in this dystopian society. Too weak to be good. Too weak to break free. Too weak to do anything but adhere to the most crude, selfish, short term motivations. Too weak to be friendly, open, honest. Too weak to be anything but a mere survivalist. Focusing almost solely on just surviving with a few crap diversions thrown in, finding at most one person you'll be real and meaningful with, if even that.

You've made the world the piece of shit it is and you're too weak to face what it is. Too weak to see what it could be. Too weak to do anything but find a way to be happy in dystopia. And thus it won't change. It will never change. You'll only look for change when you run out of food and shelter, otherwise you'll put up with anything. Short of being literally beaten to a pulp there's nothing too crude and meaningless for you that you won't convince yourself is just fucking great.

You have no scope of mind. No ability to see that there must be more than just surviving and some meaningless diversions. But you're slaves who won't revolt. Who've tried to convince themselves this is all for the best. You won't do a goddammed thing outside the social norms.

Lady at work's boyfriend is going to become a coal miner. He'll be working 6 days a week, which with his commute added in will each be ten hour days. Reminds me of asking my mom about my grandfather, asking what he was like. She answered she didn't really know, he was always at work until he was killed in the mines when she was 16. This lady at work's cousin has already been killed in the mines. What does she think? "When it's your time, it's just your time." As if there's nothing that can be done to change the situation. Nothing to do but meakly agree to be a slave and try to convince yourself it's all for the best.

Another woman is planning on becoming a coal miner, again working 6 days a week, like her husband who already does so. She believes that we exist to work and wouldn't even know what to otherwise be doing. The idea of spending time not working is shameful to her. She's a perfectly evolved prole. One of many. Such is our evolution.

Things were actually better in old England compared to here today in America where now everyone is a worker. Most of the people now crowing at the top of the pile of dead human corpses all work long hours also. They mostly got to the top because they worked their asses off. Because that's what they like to be doing. Their job is their life and so it is for pretty much everyone. In old England you had far more people who were free to just be idle. People who just inherited fortunes. Yes, the majority were stuck in virtual slavery but at least a very few had free time for art.

Now most of the people who potentially could have sufficient free time to make some beautiful thing, some thing beyond mere survival, got in such a position exactly because they liked working so hard, and thus like robots continue working so hard, accumulating massive wealth they don't even know what to do with. Wealth and free time is now far more likely to be wasted on people who have no idea what actually to do with either other than to try to make sure others see how rich they are. The inequality and injustice of inherited wealth was actually better than this.

And so we evolve to love doing nothing but working absurdly long hours in jobs that shouldn't define us, but more and more, do. More and more of today's slaves want to be slaves. Those who don't being far less likely to successfully reproduce.

The happy man is defined by his job and wouldn't know what to do if he wasn't working. The happy man doesn't hardly speak to his neighbors and likes it that way. He's got his food, shelter, sex and TV, what else could he need? He sees anyone step outside the social norms and he thinks they must be nuts or possibly some kind of criminal.

...The above was written with a temperature of a 102 a bit after taking 2 lortabs. After getting the irregular heartbeat I started eating grilled cheese sandwiches as they're such a comfort food for me having grown up on them. As a result I caught the flu and felt all around awful. Really, really bad.

Anger, frustration, hatred. Such may be all incredibly crude, violence based feelings, but it's probably just too much a basic part of who we are.

To some extent I've been avoiding negative thoughts lately and instead enjoying small things. Doing so reduces tension and makes the days pass nicer. And also removes my motivations, my sense of direction as far as writing. Removes my purpose for being eventually.

So that eventually I apparently use feeling awful as fuel to help me try to remember. Including anger because it is an awful feeling.

Something vaguely like that.

How Much Money Do You Make?

"How much money do you make?"

In 'utopia', this is at worst an entirely innocent question. A bit of mild curiousity. Even better, if you don't make much, the utopianist now knows that he should keep an eye open to the possibility of offering you any help you might need.

You make a lot? Perhaps you own a lot of neat toys and have a cool house to invite people over to for parties and so on.

If nothing else it's just a bit of information. People who do such and such job make good money. Perhaps I should look into a career change?

In dystopia this is a wildly inappropriate question. Why? Because if the person doesn't make as much money as the questioner, the questioner will then judge them as beneath them, reducing their interaction to an incredibly crude materialistic competition. And if the person makes more than the questioner, the questioner will be jealous and who knows? possibly try to rob them?

Really those are The Reasons it's an inappropriate question to ask in this world. In this dystopia. Although if you ask someone in this dystopia why it's an inappropriate question, chances are very good they won't be able to say other than it's just inappropriate. Or 'it's private!' They don't even hardly really know why. They just know that you ask, and they feel fear. They feel offended by your invasiveness.

The default is fear, don't you know that?

It's private!

"What do you do for a living?"

A bit of small talk? A way to break the ice at a party? As often as not considered the same as asking how much money someone makes. Again, the default is fear. Stay away! Keep your interactions meaningless. Talk about the fucking weather. Make a stupid joke. You're not supposed to be collecting information you could use against the person. Just don't even ask questions! Just fucking sit there and shut up. Or, 'we've certainly been having nice weather lately.'

'Oh, why yes we have, haven't we?' (SCREEEEEEECCH!! THIS IS FEAR! THIS IS THE DYSTOPIA. YOU ARE A POSSIBLE ENEMY. Perhaps over the course of some very long time span I'll quit considering you an enemy. If I'm single and you stick your penis in me. Otherwise, really no need to take any chances.)

...so then I want to write a story about the moral man in dystopia. And what does it take to be such a man? You have to be a sort of freak. A sort of monster. A creature with little to no fear. (And what could cause that? Incredible strength and/or nothing to lose?) A creature that doesn't care about pleasing those around him. A creature that doesn't really conform.

A person who has metaphorically been trying to reinvent the wheel with regards to everything....

A man who is reviled to the extent he truly reveals himself to his fellows...?
A man yet who believes total honesty is essential.
A man who is nice like a masochist. Always assuming the best. In theory hating hiskind, in practice loving everyone.

A creature that had no interest in pleasing its parents. Not though because he hated them, as that would mean rebeling and simply trying to be their opposite. No, he neither hates nor thinks particularly highly of them. Is it like he's indifferent? Is he incapable of love?

With his lack of fear, perhaps he can't understand the main motivational force behind the actions of his fellow. Instead he just sees their endless moral failings and is consumed with rage.

I want to make clear that he's a monster. A monster and yet an angel. And that it is only possible to be an angel in a dystopia if you are a monster.

Or does it?

Or is he?

8 days without a blog post. (80 hour work week+my marine brother visiting for the first time in 5 years...) A record.... Reading Robin Hobb's Soldier Son trilogy and thinking about the need for people to focus on trying to please their 'over I' or super ego, or to have pride in following their own set ethical guidelines, or etc, instead of trying to please a parent, etc.

Thinking of how essential that is, that a person should question the authority of their parent (such Nevare's father early on wishes he would do...) and become something other than their follower. Neither a follower nor leader should anyone be. Except a leader of one's self. Trying to think upon how essential or not essential this is, to determining the moral character of a person...

Certainly in a dystopia questioning authority is crucial... If I ever have children, and it's looking very iffy... I do think this is something that will really stick with me. A child that still at 10, at 15... seems primarily concerned with pleasing me.... I would think that horrible.

I look at the people around me who have broken moral compasses... It is more complex. Hobb's world is simplified as most stories are. But this idea of having a strong authority figure whom you unquestioningly follow. Who's authority you obey. Whereby your only morality is to please them plays a role.

But comes a day where you become that new moral authority whom you think deserves to be obeyed without question. And your own ethical code is based on what? You who've spent your life trying to curry favor with whoever you perceived as having power over you... It would appear to be a morality based on power.

All that morality means is self interest with some long term forethought. Which is to say instead of just doing are own immediate short term self interest, we perform acts that appear to help the common good to our own detriment instead.

Those who believe in leaders and followers and believe their morality ultimately consists of doing what the leader says, actually do so because they understand that keeping in good favor with the leader is in their own best interest. It is a simple and practical short term thinking. The person who instead answers only to himself, to hell with the evil wishes of whoever has power over him, is actually practicing a much longer term self interest.

It is hard to explain. But within the difference between the two and so on. We have conflicts. Between the differences in moral codes we have the concept of evil and thus we have anger. As one person focuses on longer term good and sees another is ignoring it, they feel their is nothing for it then but force (and thus anger.) While another is focusing on short term good and sees another ignoring it and also feels there is then nothing for it but force (and thus anger). Etc.

So you spend your life trying to curry favor from whoever has power. You're practicing a relatively short term 'morality'. Then once you have power, what is your morality? What did you think their's before you was? Most likely you didn't really think much at all upon it. Mostly they weren't thinking. And neither are you. Following tradition is all. Whatever exactly you've decided to believe that tradition to be. Understanding your mind is like wandering through a mist. Coming here and there across a hodgepodge of somewhat random and contradictory beliefs. Glued together by short term self interest. And justified by a thinking which isn't aware of itself.

And I've no time.